These characters are over 150 years old so they aren't mine, however much I want them to be!
Awakenings
By Winam
The rain had fallen unabated since last night and battered the casement still. Though the wind blew relentlessly – bending trees to its will, wrenching open shutters – I felt safe in the school room beside the cosy hearth. It was on days like this that I was thankful to be at Thornfield and not at Gatestead where I had warmth but not security, or Lowood where a good fire was unheard of.
Adèle's school hours having finished for the day, I only wanted a book to amuse me until tea time. There was of course plenty to read here, but none that could scarcely entertain anyone above ten years of age. Only the library held such treasures, but since Mr. Rochester returned home a fortnight ago I had been careful of when I visited that room – the library was only accessible through the study, the room my master seemed to covet.
Not that I feared Mr. Rochester, though some might think him frightful. Not in appearance or manner – he was a liberal employer, his behaviour possibly no different from any other squire – but he had not an open, cheerful countenance. Only this morning he passed me in the hallway with a scowl that would frighten the devil. He nodded distantly to me and continued on, but I paused for a moment, watching him until he descended the stairs.
What manner of dark thoughts could cause such a frown? Were his business matters so straining? Mrs. Fairfax had intimated that he had had disappointments in the past. Could that be what plagued him?
What was clear was that my master was an unhappy man. His deeply-lined face affirmed that a frown had long been habitual to him, yet I knew how he looked when happy. I remembered once inadvertently saying a facetious thing that truly made him smile. The smile was wide, brilliant, with no hint of shadow – so brilliant in fact that I could not help smiling back. I sensed a gregarious character behind that gruffness, but why did he constantly suppress it?
I went downstairs to find the study vacant, but as I crossed to the library door, my eye was again caught by Mr. Rochester's extensive collection of birds, beetles – and what I liked most – butterflies. I had eyed his collection sometime ago on a previous visit to the room, had gazed with wonder at the fantastic colours and shapes of the creatures displayed there.
I glanced back at the door – the hall was silent – before approaching the display. The colourful butterflies occupied several frames and I wondered what magical places they used to inhabit, how they came to be at Thornfield. But as I examined a frame of blue butterflies I heard the sound of footsteps out in the hallway. Distinctive footsteps that I had just learned to recognise.
Footsteps that paused at the study door.